


I Just Wanted A Nap

by Boberry



Series: Meet Uglies [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Airplanes, F/M, Fear of Flying, First Meetings, Fluff, Lance (Voltron) is a Dork, Let Keith Sleep TM, M/M, Meet-Cute, Multi, well the prompt was meet ugly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-12-31 21:42:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18322508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boberry/pseuds/Boberry
Summary: Why do the main characters always meet in a cute way? Have a meet-ugly.Lance hates flying and Keith is tired. It falls on Keith to calm him down before they suffer death at the hands of old lady.





	I Just Wanted A Nap

**Author's Note:**

> So I started writing this in February 2017.....  
> So this was made Pre-Adam reveal. I only just got around to finishing it. Pardon my grammar I didn't really edit this that much. let me know if i messed up anywhere.....  
> Without further ado:

Keith was exhausted.

As an agent for a big league marketing firm, his job took him all over the world to talk to future clients and arrange contracts. He was currently sitting at Incheon airport in South Korea waiting for his flight back home to America. He had his earbuds in, and he was finishing up a Skype call with his boss before he boarded.

"Yas, Shiro. I understand that I need to get this deal with Samsung. I'm working on it." He yawned loudly before continuing, "I'll be back in Korea in a week to lock down the details."

"Good," Shiro replied sternly, "You know I'm only capable of stalling Allura for so long Keith."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just take her and Matt out to that fancy Italian place she likes. She'd give you at least a month for that."

Shiro starts to turn red as he says, " _Keith_ , you kn-"

Keith stopped listening as Shiro was cut off by a flight attendant announcing his boarding party.

"Sorry, Shiro I got to go. I'll call you when I get on the ground in LA."

"Bye Keith, don't start any fights 35,000 ft in the air."

" _Goodbye_ , Shiro"

"Talk to you in 11 hours, baby bro."

He hung up on Shiro as he approached the gate attendant and handed her his passport and boarding pass. He made his way onto the plane ready to find his seat and fall asleep.

_41C, 41C, 41C, Ah 41C!_

Keith quickly stowed his carry on in the overhead compartment and sat down in his seat to get out of the way. He stuck his messenger bag that was bulging with books under the seat in front of him, opened his phone, and turned on his favorite playlist while he watched all the other passengers filter onto the plane and find their seats.

The plane was almost full and Keith noticed that the seat next to him was still empty. Just as he started to hope that the seat next to him would remain empty so that he could spread out a tad more as he slept, the last person to board the plane, a tall lanky Latino man, scooted awkwardly past Keith and sat in that empty seat that had been so full of hope only a moment before.

Grumpy at losing the little bit of extra space, he looked over at the man that had just sat down looking for some sort of clue as to who he was. The only thing Keith could learn from looking at him was that he was flushed. Probably from running all the way to the gate in order to make the flight in time.

He frowned at the man who clearly had no sense of proper time management and decided it was time to get out his neck pillow, so that he could be asleep by the time they were at cruising altitude. As he dug around in his bulging messenger bag, he realized that the flight attendants had started giving the old tired safety speech once again. He ignored it having heard it about 50 times and kept digging for his neck pillow. He noticed the man sitting next to him was paying avid attention to the flight attendants though and seemed rather annoyed at the noises Keith was making trying to find his neck pillow. About the time they finished with the safety briefing and said that additional information was in the travel safety pamphlets that were in the back of the seat in front of them, Keith realized that his neck pillow was in his carry-on in the overhead compartment.

_Great, just great. Not only is my neck pillow in my carry-on, which means I won't get any sleep till we're cruising and I can get to it, I'm also stuck next to the idiot who actually reads the safety information pamphlets they give you. Which means that this is probably his 2nd or 3rd flight and any minute now this idiot is going to try to strike up a conversation with me._

Finally, they were on the runway about to take off, and Keith couldn't help but notice that the man next to him had started gripping the armrests on the seats as tightly as he could from the moment the pilot had started running up the engines.

After what seemed like 3 hours, they finally reached cruise altitude. Keith stood up, got his neck pillow out and sat back down. He leaned his small economy class seat as far back as he could, which wasn't very far at all, and tried to get some sleep.

He couldn't fall asleep.

Normally on a flight he could turn on his music, get his neck pillow, and he was out like a light. But he just couldn't fall asleep.

Realizing that the reason he was having a hard time trying to fall asleep was all the fidgeting happening in the seat next to him, Keith burst out, "Hey man, what's your deal?"

"Excuse me?"

"What is your deal? You've been acting all fidgety ever since we took off and I've never actually seen anyone read the info pamphlets so what's your deal? Why are you still fidgeting?"

"I'm scared of flying! Ok! This is only the second time I've ever flown in my life, and I'm terrified something is going to happen and we're going to plunge straight into the ocean from 50,000 feet and die horrible horrible deaths."

"Um, well, ok then. Could you at least stop fidgeting so I could get some sleep?"

"I can try? But I don't even know if I can."

"Thanks," Keith huffed, annoyed that this idiot was keeping him awake.

He restarted his playlist, laid back and tried to get back the hours he'd lost.

-

-

-

-

-

After about ten minutes of peace, the fidgeting started again.

Keith groaned, and, figuring that he probably wasn't going to get any sleep on this 12 hour flight, he took off his neck pillow and dug around in his bag for the book he's been reading.

After about 10 minutes of trying to focus on his book, _The Adventures of Voltron_ , and failing, he gave up. He couldn't do anything with the idiot next to him moving every 10 seconds. And just when he thought that maybe the man had stop moving, he'd start moving again.

Keith had had it.

He turned towards the man who now had his laptop out and was clacking away at the keys and exploded. "Could you please stop fidgeting!" He whisper yelled at the man.

"Okay okay sorry," the man replied, "I'm still nervous about this whole flying 50,000 feet in the air over the Pacific Ocean."

Keith inwardly groaned, realizing that he had to be a good person and try to actually distract this man so that the little old lady sitting in the window seat who was looking very angrily over her knitting didn't strangle them both.

He grumbled, "Isn't there something you can do to distract yourself?"

The man thinks for a moment. "Well," He started hesitantly before continuing, "Normally, when my anxiety is all crazy, my buddy Hunk just talks to me and it distracts me and helps to calm me down."

_Oh joy. More talking._ "Well I guess we can do that."

"Cool."

After a short awkward silence, Keith can't take it anymore and asks, "So if you hate flying so much why did you go to South Korea in the first place?"

The man sighed. "It's a pretty long story, you sure you're up for it?"

"I honestly don't care and I can't focus on anything else so."

"Okay then. You remember my buddy Hunk that I mentioned like just now? Well we've been friends since kindergarten, and he's always been a great cook. Well his moms saved up a lot while he was young and managed to scrape up enough money to send him to a fancy culinary school. He excelled at culinary school, flourished, thrived. He even graduated top of his class."

"Wait, you mean they actually give grades at culinary school?" Keith interrupted.

"Yas, can I continue?" The man didn't wait for Keith's response before moving on. "While he was in school, he worked at a small local restaurant as a cook. They loved him to death there but he wanted to be more than just a cook at a small restaurant in a college town so he resigned packed up his bags and moved to LA."

"So you're going to visit him where he lives in LA?"

"Dude stop interrupting. He doesn't live there now, but he did back then. So he goes to LA and applies to all these fancy restaurants as a chef. He doesn't get hired, doesn't get hired, doesn't get hired. And this whole time he's crashing at my place. Until one day, this restaurant calls him back and says they want to hire him as a prep chef. But they need to call him in one more time for a practical interview, you know, to see how well he handles pressure and such. Anyway, he goes in for his interview and you'll never guess who the head chef is that he's working with."

After a few moments of silence the man ask, "So aren't you going to guess?"

"But you told me not to interrupt!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just guess."

"Well, I don't know very many famous chefs, I don't tend to watch a lot of food network, sooooo maybe Dave Ramsey?"

The man looked insulted and vaguely amused at his suggestion so Keith continued, "You know, the guy from Master Chef Jr.?"

The man looked confused for a moment then an expression of understanding crossed his face.

"Oooooooooh," he said condescendingly, "You're talking about Gordon Ramsay."

"Isn't that what I said?"

"No you said Dave Ramsey. You know the Financial Peace guy?"

"Whatever so was it him?"

"Dave Ramsey? No. Gordon Ramsay? Ya, it was."

"Ha, and you said I couldn't guess it."

"You didn't you guessed Dave Ramsey. Anyway, can we continue with the story now?"

"Sure. Continue on, oh great storyteller." Keith says dryly.

The man smirked before continuing the tales of Hunk, "So he walks into the kitchen for his practical and boom, there in the kitchen is the Gordon Ramsay. Hunk starts freaking out. He's seen Gordon on television before and knows how critical he can be in the kitchen. But Hunk needs this job so he sucks it up and does what he does best. He cooks. Well more like chops and gets ingredients but this is a kitchen. This is his turf. This is his domain. He somehow manages to impress Gordon Ramsay who gives him the prep cook job. He starts working his way up. From prep cook, to line cook, to junior sous chef, to sous chef. Now he's been working at this restaurant for 7 years, and he hears news that Gordon Ramsay is taking applicants for a Chef de Cuisine in the new restaurant he's opening. So my pal Hunk decides to apply for the position and in the application you have to put one of your original recipes. So he goes to his recipe box to get his recipe for his famous curry lasagna to copy it down. He copied the recipe on an index card and attached the copy to the application and sent it off."

"So that's it he got the job then?"

"Ok really you gotta stop interrupting. Good to know you're paying attention though. The problem was that earlier that day Hunk had gotten out his peanut butter chocolate chip cookie recipe out to make me cookies and hadn't put the recipe away yet. So, when he attached the recipe to the application, he attached the wrong recipe and sent gordon ramsay his cookie recipe. Flash forward a week, he's on twitter, and he sees _his_ cookies on Gordon Ramsay's twitter account with the caption 'I know what's in these cookies but I still don't know how they taste like magic.' Well Hunk, he starts freaking out. He realized that he attached the wrong recipe to his application and figured that his chance at being Chef de Cuisine was shot. He goes into work the next night, Friday night, the busiest night of the week, to see that Gordon has taken over as executive chef for the night again. After a long grueling night in the kitchen under Gordon's watchful eye, he was asked to stay back in the kitchen a while longer. Hunk being the nervous wreck he is, thinks he's going to get fired because he sent in the wrong recipe and made a mockery of the application process. Instead, he gets the job as Chef de Cuisine, but there's a catch to the job. The new restaurant was in…" The man trailed off expectantly.

"South Korea?" Keith finished for him.

"Yep!"

"You know you could've just said that you were visiting your best friend who's a chef in Korea."

"Ah, but you see. I wasn't visiting. I was helping him move and attending the grand opening of the new restaurant."

"Eh, same thing."

The man looked insulted yet again.

"Ok, maybe it's not the same." Keith was starting to come to the conclusion that this mystery man was extremely easy to insult.

The entire story had only taken 10 minutes to tell. But at least the man wasn't fidgeting anymore. They were silent for a beat.

"Soooo, why were you in South Korea?" The man asked suddenly.

Keith sighed, _Here comes more talking_ , "Well, my story is a lot less elaborate. I am an agent at a marketing firm that's trying to break a deal with Samsung."

"Dude, you are the worst storyteller."

"What? That's the reason I was in Korea".

"No, you've got to start from the beginning. Like, why do you work at a marketing firm? Cause to me it doesn't seem like you're a big people person."

"I'm not."

"Well then why do you work as a marketing agent firm thingy in the first place? Seems to me like that's a job that requires someone who's good with people."

"Hey, I never said that I wasn't good with people. I just prefer not to be with them"

"Uh huh, suuuure"

"Whatever," Keith huffed angrily.

"Dude sorry I didn't mean to offend. Why don't you tell me how you got your job?"

"Ugh. Fine." Keith took a deep breath before starting, "I was still in college and my-"

The man cut Keith off. "What was your major?"

Keith shot him a glare before replying, "Aviation. Can I tell my story now? Without interruptions?"

"Maybe." The man winked with a sly grin that told Keith that he totally was going to be interrupting.

Keith rolled his eyes and continued begrudgingly, "I was in college for a degree in aviation and aeronautics, and I've had anger issues since I was a kid. Well one day my professor must have forgotten that I was scheduled to fly with him that day and took another student flying. I was furious. This was just the last straw in a bunch of other infuriating things that had happened that week that I don't even remember now. Well, I went to a nearby bar ready to drink my frustrations away. But I drank too much and ended up taking my anger out on the planes with a can of spray paint. I got expelled. And after that no program would take me. So I started looking for a job to pay off my student loans. I applied to a bunch of places, and I hadn't heard back from any of them when I got a call from my brother. My brother's girlfriend is the owner of Altea marketing,"

The man cut him off, "Wait, THE Altea marketing. The company responsible for the 'It's a pillow it's a pet' jingle?"

Keith cringes hard, "Not our best work. Plus that was before my time. A better example would be the cover art on _The Adventures of Voltron_ series."

"You guys did the cover on that? I heard the author didn't like it."

Keith huffed, annoyed yet again. "Okay, look. You know the saying don't judge a book by it's cover? Everyone does. People look at a book and they make a snap second decision based on what they see. Psychology 101."

"Doesn't mean that some people aren't going to like the cover who would like the book."

"Whatever." Keith rolled his eyes for what felt like the 100th time since he boarded the plane. The flight attendants started making their way down the aisles with the meal and drink carts.

"Anyway, my brother works under her as the head of her design division. Apparently, they just happened to have an opening in their management division. So I took the job and became one of their best negotiators."

"Huh."

"Yep."

They sat there awkwardly for a few moments. Keith considered reaching down to grab his book again. But the man spoke before he could consider it further.

"Sooooooo, do you live in LA?"

"Ya. When I'm not travelling, I live there and work at our headquarters. What about you?"

"Excuse me?"

"What do you do? You know, for a living?"

Before the man could answer, the stewardess asked if they wanted anything to drink. The little old lady got a Coke, the man got a ginger ale, and Keith got a Dr. Pepper.

"So where were we?"

"I was-" the man was cut off again by a stewardess wanting to know which meal we would like. Keith got bibimbap and the little old lady got chicken.

"Do you want anything hon?" The stewardess asked the man. He seemed hesitant then replied, "I guess I'll take what my man here is getting."

"Alright, here you go hon. Enjoy the rest of y'all's flight."

The man hastily put away his laptop to make room for his food. He put his meal on his tray and then just stared at it as if he didn't know what was sitting in front of him.

While the man was putting his laptop away, Keith had opened his seaweed soup and started eating it. By the time that Keith finished his seaweed soup, The man was sitting up staring at his plate in confusion.

"Do you know how to eat bibimbap?" Keith asked after an awkward beat.

"Nah. Can't be that hard though right?"

Keith rolled his eyes and reached over pointing out things on the man's tray, "This is seaweed soup. This is the bibimbap, and this is the red pepper paste so you can add spice."

"Got it." The man opens the tube of red pepper paste and puts a bit on his finger. He sticks his finger in his mouth before Keith can warn him.

His eyes widen. He opens his bibimbap quickly and scarfs it down in order to try and calm the heat. "WHAT THE HELL!" He shouts after he's finished. He got a few nasty glares from some nearby parents. "Why didn't you warn me it would be that spicy?" He says more quietly.

"I didn't think to warn you till it was on your finger. "

"WhY not?"

"I figured you knew. You are on your way back from South Korea. The land of spicy and kimchi."

"That doesn't mean I know everything about the food! I'm not Hunk!"

"Clearly."

"What's that supposed to mean!"

"Nothing except that you don't know anything about food for someone claiming that his best friend is a chef."

"My best friend IS a chef."

"Uh huh. Sure."

They sat on silence as the man pecked at what was left of his food and Keith ate his.

Eventually the man got bored and spoke up. "So what do you usually do on these flights?"

Keith took his time chewing the food in his mouth. After swallowing, he replied dryly, "I sleep."

The man turned a dark red, "Oh my God. I'm so sorry I'm such an idiot I can leave you alone if you need I'm such a nuisance I'm sorry."

Keith rolled his eyes yet again, "It's fine I wasn't able to focus or do anything with you fidgeting like that. At least when I'm talking to you, you aren't constantly moving and clacking away at your computer."

"You sure? Cause I can just watch," the man flinches at what's on the screen, "a random episode of, oh look, the cartoon adaption of _The Adventures of Voltron_."

"No, really it's fine."

The stewardess came back and collected their trays. "Anything else I can get you folks?"

"No thank you." Keith responds. He turns to his neighbor and asks, "Do you have a problem with Voltron?"

"What? No! Of course not! I just don't like the animated series. I much prefer the books."

"Ok good. For a second there, I thought that we weren't gonna be able to be friends."

"Wait, are we friends?" the man asks nervously.

"No, but we could be."

"Oh, ok."

"So what were you planning to do on the flight?" Keith asked the man who had started to fidget nervously again.

The man visibly relaxed and replied, "I kind of just figured I'd write or listen to some music and try to get some rest."

"Well you are way too nervous to rest right now and since for some reason you dislike the animated Voltron, do you want to read it? I brought my copy you can borrow it of you'd like."

The man winced, "Oh, uh thanks but I'll pass."

"What, why?" Keith asked extremely confused.

"I don't do too well when reading on planes?" The man spoke slowly as if he was unsure of his reason, "I tried last time and almost threw up all of my neighbor."

"Ok scratch that idea. I have a few movies downloaded we could watch?" Keith says as he digs for his tablet from his bag.

The man hesitated. "But what will you do?"

"I'll just watch with. You good with Harry Potter?"

The man smiled. "I'm great with Harry Potter."

They settled in and started watching.

* * *

Keith was woken up by the stewardess informing him he had to put his seat upright for landing.

Dazed he sat his seat up and looked at the tablet in his hand. It was automatically playing through the Harry potter movies. The screen was showing a scene from the order of the Phoenix, but Keith doesn't remember even finishing the first movie before the man and Keith had both passed out from exhaustion.

The man was sitting up dazed as well. "Are we already here? Dang I didn't realize Harry Potter would be such a good bedtime story."

Keith snickered at that. "It was probably more exhaustion than the movie itself."

"I think it probably has something to do with who I was watching with."

Keith laughed harder at that. "I had nothing to do with it promise."

"Whatever you say," the man said with a wink.

Keith rolled his eyes as he put his tablet back in his bag and turned on his phone much to the chagrin of his neighbor.

"The captain didn't say we could turn our phones on yet!" He said worriedly.

"Trust me, as someone who got kicked out of an aviation college. The whole your phone messes with the navigation controls is BS. Pilots use their phone to navigate all the time. I just don't get good reception 40,000 feet in the air so I turn my phone off."

The man sigh exasperated, "Fine, whatever. What do I know about planes anyway."

Despite his reluctance, the man pulled out his own phone to turn it on. As soon as he did, it exploded with vibration.

"Popular much?" Keith asked with a smirk smothering a laugh.

"My family doesn't get the whole no reception in flight thing."

Keith smirked. "Probably cause they knew that this flight has WiFi."

"Wait are you telling me I suffered through your awful storytelling for no reason?"

"No there's a good reason. The WiFi is crap unless you pay for it. and you don't look the type to pay for it."

The man laughed. "You're not wrong."

They made it onto the ground safely. While they were taxiing over to the gate, Keith and the man sat in silence.

The man eventually spoke up, "So I never caught your name."

"Probably cause I didn't throw it." Keith smirked. "I'm Keith. Keith Kogane."

The man stuck out his hand as if for a pen. "I'm Lance. Lance McLain."

Keith stared at the man's, no, Lance's hand for a moment before deciding he wanted a hand shake and shaking his hand awkwardly. _Where do I know that name from?_

The plane finally parked and the seatbelt sign turned off. All the passengers stood up reaching for their carry ons. Keith didn't move. He sees Lance's confusion and says, "I know you don't do this a lot but trust me it's easier to wait."

"Noted. Thanks for the tip."

As passengers left the plane the aisle got emptier and soon Lance and Keith were able to stand up. "See? Not that bad."

Keith and Lance grab their carry ons and head off the plane. Once they get out the gate, Keith turns to Lance to say goodbye. He sees his confused look and quickly realizes that he has no idea how to go through customs and immigration. "Follow me." He huffs reluctantly. Lance's stiff composure immediately starts to soften as he follows Keith.

"So you just take your passport and this blue slip to that person in the window." Keith points. "Like this follow me." Lance follows him like a lost puppy.

After waiting in line for what seemed like forever, Keith and Lance both got through immigration without a hitch. "Ok one more step." Keith says.

Lance groans. "There's more?"

Keith laughs. "Welcome to the hell that is entering the United States. Did you check a bag?"

Lance nodded.

"Ok so you have to get it off the baggage claim. Do you need me for this part?"

Lance spoke hesitantly, "I don't think so?"

"Ask for help if you need it. Once you have your luggage come meet me by this pillar," Keith points. "I need to make a call."

Lance nodded determinedly and heads towards the baggage claim. Keith watches him to make sure he goes to the right one before pulling out his phone and calling shiro.

"What's up Keith?" Shiro's voice rings again from Keith's phone.

"Are you coming to pick me up?"

"No me and matt drove over and parked your bike yesterday. Didn't I tell you yesterday?"

"You didn't tell me jack. At least tell me Matt didn't ride my bike?"

Shiro didn't speak.

Keith groaned. "I swear if there is even the slightest scratch on red you're both dead."

Lance decides to walk up at that exact moment and his eyes widen.

"You don't scare me baby bro. I'll see you soon." Shiro hung up before Keith could blow up at him.

Keith pulled his phone away from his face. Shiro's contact photo seemed to be smirking at him from the screen.

"Uh. I hope that was family or a friend and not some random person." Lance chuckled.

"Just my dumbass brother who let his boyfriend drive my bike," Keith grumbled as he puts his phone in his pocket.

Lance, very confused, asked, "I thought your brother had a girlfriend?"

"He does." Keith replied matter-of-factly. "Ok so follow me."

Keith leads Lance through the line and border patrol. They make it outside without anymore hassle.

Lance speaks, more confident now that he's outside away from unfamiliar terrain, "I guess this is goodbye then?"

"Yep. Have a nice life dude."

"You too?" Lance is very confused as Keith walks off to find his bike dragging his carry-on.

He finally sees a tire of his bike when he realizes that he can't take his carry-on on the bike. Grumbling about having to call Shiro again and then wait to get picked up, he walks the final stretch. He gets to his bike and is about to pull out his phone when he sees the monstrosity on the side.

_What. The. Actual. Fuck._

Keith thinks as he examined the sidecar. _What did Shiro and Matt do to you baby?_

He grumbled some more before putting his bag in and driving home.

_I'll kill them after I get a nap._

**Author's Note:**

> There's actually a sequel with a reveal about lance.... I might post it...


End file.
